


get well soon

by viscrael



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Fluff, M/M, Sickfic, r they dating? r they just rlly close? r they almost dating? truly who knows!, slight emetophobia warning bc it talks briefly abt gabe throwing up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 18:03:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10904571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viscrael/pseuds/viscrael
Summary: “I feel like shit.”“Look like it too.”--Jack plays nurse.





	get well soon

**Author's Note:**

> hello every1 it is i! viscrael! by that i mean i used to be **calliopinaround** but since i changed my tumblr username i decided i shld also change my ao3 to reflect that. i debated over a long time whether or not to change it bc i,, dont want all the links that go to my profile to suddenly be useless but honestly i havent been into homestuck for deadass like 3 years so it. makes little sense at this point to have my username be hs related
> 
> anyway! heres a small sickfic for my favorite Sad Dads (tm) bc ive been in a writing rut lately and needed to just get something written already!
> 
> ambiguous relationship and setting bc im horrible

“There’s no need for you to be here.”

“Too bad. I’m here anyway.”

Gabriel rolls over on his couch so that he’s facing his uninvited guest, wincing when his body aches. Jack’s back is to him as he bustles around the small kitchen to fix what Gabe is assuming is breakfast.

“Stubborn,” Gabe mumbles, although that’s the most protesting he can manage before he’s coughing again. He knows Jack’s offering a sympathetic look even before he turns back around.

“When did you start feeling bad?” he asks, pausing in his breakfast preparation. He leans his back against the counter, arms crossed over his chest.

“About three this morning.”

“Nothing before that?”

Gabe shakes his head and coughs another time. He feels like shit. Out loud he says, “I feel like shit.”

“Look like it too.”

“Haha,” he deadpans, then, “ _Shit_.” He flings himself off the couch and barely makes it to the bathroom in time to throw up in the toilet. He’s too preoccupied to realize Jack following behind him, so he jumps a little when he feels a hand rest on his back.

“Sorry,” Jack apologizes in a mumble.

Gabe had closed his eyes the moment he’d started puking, and he keeps them closed. To what he assumes is the toilet, he says, “ _Ugh_.”

Now that he’s done puking his brains out, the hand on his back moves to gently massage his right shoulder, then his left, then between his shoulder blades. Gabe’s back has bothered him since he was a teenager, but the chronic pain only got worse with age. Now, nearing thirty, it hurts him at even the slightest disturbance—like bending over a toilet to puke, for example. Figures that Jack would remember that first thing.

“Thanks,” he mumbles, reaching back to brush the hands away from his shoulders before standing shakily to feet. He flushes, brushes his teeth, gargles mouthwash, and tries his best to make himself look more alive. Jack really hadn’t just been being a smartass when he said Gabe looks as bad as he feels.

In the mirror, Jack makes eye contact with him as Gabe goes about his morning routine lethargically. “I guess you called in sick already?”

“Not exactly.”

“ _Gabe_.”

“What?!”

“You’re not going to work this morning,” Jack says firmly. “Or today at all.”

“I’m not _that_ bad.”

“How many times have you thrown up this morning already?”

Gabe starts to answer with the count (this time makes the third) before he just shuts his mouth. Jack nods as if that proves his point.

“Exactly. You’re staying in to get better.”

“You can’t make me.”

“No,” Jack agrees. But that’s all he says about it before he’s leaving the bathroom, the door left open behind him. Gabe watches him go through the mirror, stands in front of the sink a second longer, and sighs heavily. It relieves tension in his body—but only a little. After a second, he follows Jack into the small kitchenette.

Jack’s at the counter again. It looks like he’s making soup, but the stove is on and he left out a carton of eggs, scooted away from everything else. The coffee machine is on and halfway done making four cups worth of coffee—two for each of them, Gabe assumes, and reaches for a mug to make his drink. Either because he’s just woken up or because he’s still fuzzy from sickness, he almost drops the mug and just narrowly avoids shattering it on the floor. Jack sees him fumble and almost lose his grip on the handle.

“Still want to go to work?” he says, an eyebrow raised in amusement.

Gabe scowls and pours an excessive amount of coffee into his mug. He drinks it black. “Shut up. I would be fine. And I’m going.”

“You’re not going.”

“You already said you can’t make me.”

“I’m taking care of you. The least you can do for me is not make my job even harder than it already is.”

Gabe mutters to his coffee, “I told you that you didn’t have to come. And that you didn’t have to do anything for me.”

“What did you think texting me at four A.M. that you were throwing up and feel like you got hit by a truck was going to accomplish, if not this?”

“…Fair enough,” Gabe says.

Jack laughs. He’s in his clothes for work today already; he probably figured he was going to be here up until he had to leave for work when he pulled himself out of bed at four this morning to go to Gabe’s apartment.

Gabe really hadn’t known what he was expecting to happen when he texted Jack after finding out he’s horribly sick. It wasn’t like he was half-awake, texting Jack with the thought “I want him to come over and play nurse for me for the rest of the morning” as he typed. But then again, what else what Jack supposed to do when his best friend suddenly let him know he was running a high fever and possibly had a stomach virus? If the roles were reversed, Gabe knows he would’ve pulled himself out of bed to go take care of Jack; he probably wouldn’t have even thought of the work thing in that case, too busy thinking about Jack.

He sighs and drinks his coffee, leaning against the sink so he’s out of Jack’s way. The coffee seems to helping at least, but he still feels like absolute crap.

“What’re you making?” he asks, watching Jack pull out a can from the pantry. He knows Gabe’s apartment as well as Gabe does—sometimes Gabe thinks he knows it better, actually.

“Eggs and toast,” Jack says, as he pours a can of tomato soup into a pot on the stove.

“For you?”

“I didn’t exactly get time to make breakfast before I left the house.”

Gabe sighs for a third time this morning, rubbing his temple. He sets his now-empty mug down and reaches for the coffeepot to refill it. “Sorry.”

“What?”

“For making you play nurse.”

“I’m not playing nurse,” Jack assures. Seeing the look Gabe gives him, he laughs a little and relents, “Okay, fine, I am—but I don’t care. I wouldn’t have come over if I did.”

“What time do you need to leave?”

He glances at the clock on the wall opposite of him. It’s nearing six. “I have an hour before I need to be out of here.”

Gabe nods and, mug full again, brings it to his lips. Jack sees Gabe only standing there watching him, and he nods towards the living room. “Go lay down again. I’ll come get you when I’m done making breakfast.”

“I’m not gonna be able to sleep again,” Gabe protests weakly, but he’s already leaving the kitchen. Sleep claims him pretty much the second he collapses on the couch; he’d forgotten how tired he is.

He doesn’t dream, so next thing he knows he’s being shaken gently awake by his guest, Jack standing over him with a bowl in one hand and his own plate of eggs and toast on the coffee table.

“Can you eat?” he asks, even as he passes the bowl to Gabe, who takes it groggily. Yawning, Gabe nods and wastes no time eating. The nausea comes and goes in waves. Maybe he _shouldn’t_ be eating if he’s been throwing up, but—damn if he isn’t hungry.

Jack makes himself comfortable on the couch next to Gabe and they eat together in companionable silence. The clock shows that it’s nearing six-thirty. Once finished with his breakfast, Gabe sets his half-empty bowl on the coffee table, scoots it as far forwards to make room to prop his feet up, and leans against Jack. The couch is small, making it the optimal place to sleep against his best friend’s shoulder.

“You’re gonna get me sick,” Jack says, but he doesn’t sound genuinely concerned, and he doesn’t move away. In fact, his movements as he continues eating slow down as if he’s trying his best not to disturb Gabe.

“This is an obligatory part of playing nurse,” Gabe says and lets his eyes fall shut again. Jack is always so warm, and Gabe is still so tired, and he resigns himself to take another thirty-minute nap here against his friend. Jack can just move him when he needs to leave, he rationalizes.

As he’s falling asleep, when he’s in that space between nearly unconscious and still aware, he feels Jack shift so his head is leaning against Gabe’s. He says something Gabe can’t quite comprehend, and Gabe is out.

 

\--

 

He wakes to the body beneath him moving. When he blinks his eyes open, he just barely registers Jack standing over him in front of the couch, car keys dangling in one hand.

“Leavin’?” Gabe slurs.

“Be back around five.” Jack pauses as if debating something. Gabe closes his eyes again in the moment Jack hesitates, so he only feels lips press against his burning forehead. “Feel better.”

The door shuts quietly behind Jack a moment later. Gabe doesn’t notice the smile he’s wearing as he falls back into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> find me on [tumblr](http://viscrael.tumblr.com) screaming abt ow constantly


End file.
